While Disney is still mulling future plans, this play with music gets its first full-fledged outing at Off-Broadway's New York Theater Workshop, following a 2009 "Page to Stage" test-drive at La Jolla Playhouse.

As unlikely as the directorial pairing might seem, anyone familiar with their work will identify the input of both Rees and Timbers. The proudly low-tech story-theater technique owes much to Rees' association as an actor with The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. The sophomoric humor, smarty-pants metatheatricality and winking pop-cultural anachronisms are pure Timbers, recalling his recent work on Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.

Elice has nudged the tone of the novel into a more comedic vein. This pays off in the rollicking first act on the high seas, but less so in Act 2 when the characters are shipwrecked on a tropical island populated by Anglo-phobic savages and freakish mermaids whose goofy bricolage costumes come courtesy of Paloma Young.

The action sags as the show veers into larkish caper mode, overindulging in shiver-me-Timbers jokiness when it could use more of Rees' steadying hand on the wheel. This trivializes the dramatic stakes and makes for an awkward return to traditional storybook enchantment when the foundations are laid in closing scenes for J.M. Barrie's familiar Peter Pan mythology.

But the missteps are forgivable when there's so much to enjoy in the unfettered verve of the staging, the infectious balance of broad kid-friendly gags with cheeky adult humor, and the exuberant energy of the cast.

Christian Borle is inspired as Black Stache, the pre-amputation pirate better known as Captain Hook. Less a dastardly villain than a malicious dandy with a sense of mischief that recalls Groucho Marx, he handles the script's rapid-fire wordplay and shameless double entendres with great panache. Following Borle's raw emotionality this season in Angels in America, the performance shows impressive range.

The multitasking actors all show unflagging commitment to the quirky material, mostly avoiding preciousness. Notable contributions come from Arnie Burton as Molly's alliteration-addicted nanny, Betty Bumbrake; Matt D'Amico as nefarious seafarer Slank; and Carson Elrod and David Rossmer as Peter's fellow Lost Boys.

Accompanied by a pianist and percussionist, the show plays like a musical though its actual songs (by Wayne Barker) are limited to modest pirate, sailor and mermaid ditties. Design work is delightful, especially Jeff Croiter's vivid lighting and Donyale Werle's tangle of rigging for the shipboard scenes, framed by a kitschy gilded fake proscenium and dusty velvet show curtain.

But it's in the simple flourishes – conjuring a wild storm at sea with little more than a length of rope, or a giant crocodile with a pair of red headlights and strings of white flags for teeth – that the show taps into a magical tradition of children's theater. In an era of mainstream family entertainment in which audience imagination is too rarely a requirement, it's a breath of salty sea air.